Abstract
Catalytic epoxidation of α-H-containing olefins with air over nanosized metal oxides under mild conditions has been first reported. Nanosized Co3O4 was considerably active for the epoxidation of α-pinene and cinnamyl chloride with air at atmospheric pressure. A substrate α-pinene conversion of 70.75 mol% with an epoxide selectivity of 87.68% was achieved at 363 K over Co3O4. Once Co3O4 was further modified with metal oxides or ammonium salts through a simple procedure consisting of ultrasonic agitation, drying and calcination, thus-prepared catalysts presented lower catalytic activity and higher epoxide selectivity than cobalt oxide itself. Over Co3O4 modified with surfactants, the conversion of α-pinene was somewhat reduced to 48.86–63.76 mol%, but the epoxide selectivity was increased to 92.12–94.83%. However, the composite oxide CoO x –SnO x (10:1) catalyzed 48.21 mol% of α-pinene conversion with 85.82% of epoxide selectivity. For the substrate cinnamyl chloride, the best result was 40.76 mol% of conversion and 87.17% of epoxide selectivity achieved by CoO x –ZnO (5:1). It is noteworthy that the use of TBHP in small amounts initiated the reaction efficiently, and the lack of TBHP would lead to a low conversion and selectivity.
Graphical Abstract
Catalytic epoxidation of α-H-containing olefins with dry air over nanosized metal oxides under mild conditions was first reported. Co3O4 and Co3O4 modified with surfactants could catalytically convert 48.86–70.75 mol% of α-pinene, with the epoxide selectivity high up to 87.68–94.83%. The best result of cinnamyl chloride catalyzed by 5:1 CoO x –ZnO was 40.76 mol% of conversion with 87.17% of selectivity to epoxide.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the funding supports provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 20673035), by the 2007 excellent mid-youth innovative project of Hubei Provincial Education Department of China (no.T200701), by the project-sponsored by SRF for ROCS, SEM of China (no. [2007]24), by the key project of Hubei Provincial Science & Technology Department of China (2008CDA030), and by MOE Key Laboratory of Hubei University, China (no. 2006-KL-001).
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Lu, XH., Xia, QH., Fang, SY. et al. Highly Selective Epoxidation of α-Pinene and Cinnamyl Chloride with Dry Air over Nanosized Metal Oxides. Catal Lett 131, 517–525 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10562-009-9943-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10562-009-9943-9